Left Shoe on the Wrong Foot
by AnnalovesElsa
Summary: Riley has a new friend and gains a new emotion, Love. But Love the emotion makes Joy really tetchy. Then Riley gets the opportunity to go back in time and meet Queen Elsa of Arendelle. Only the journey is derailed and while in the future, something happens to Riley and even she doesn't know it's happening. And in her mind her emotions are getting windswept...
1. Riley Hears the Story

**Left Shoe on the Wrong Foot**

 **Chapter One**

 **Author's Note:** This fanfic treats the Disney movies _Frozen_ and _Pocahontas_ as being historical fact. I know what really happened in Pochontas' time, that she was twelve years old when she was forced on a ship and taken to England and later married John Rolfe. However, I like seeing Disney movies have connections and though Pixar movies tend to take a different tangent from Walt Disney Animation Studios ones, I like to think that in the perfect world they can work together rather than against one another. So in this story the events of any Disney movie could be labeled as historical fact.

 _Long, long ago, in a far off country_ calle _d Norway, back whe_ n your great _-great-great grandparents still had yet to walk the Earth, having not been born y_ et, there was a queen of magnificent beauty, who was born with an extraordinary gift, the power to make ice come out of her fingertips.

She wasn't always a queen of course. But on July 17, 1846, _a week after her twenty-first birthday, Elsa became queen._

 _However, the people of her kingdom, Arendelle, did not know she had ice powers. No one knew, not even her sister. Her parents had known, but they were dead. Had been gone the past three years, having died in a shipwreck on the ragins seas._

 _Anyway, that night Elsa ran away from home, for people had witnessed her shoot the tall icicles out of her fingers, and then she made an ice sculpture without intending to. But she didn't know that she could imbue life into something, not then._

 _However, on her way up the mountain where she would take refuge, she created a snowman. Now this snowman was given only two emotions, an abundance of Joy, his dominant one, and a slight twinge of sadness, which would be activated whenever anything terrible happened to Anna, the sister Elsa cared for so deeply. The reason for these two emotions appearing in the snowman was that Elsa felt relief and happiness that people knew now and that keeping it in was all over. But with this joy came an undercurrent of misery which Elsa could perceive only as the thought, "I'll never see Anna again."_

The above was a note to Riley from Gill, a fellow student in her English class. Gill had handed it to her on one of her bad days, saying, "This will surely cheer you up."

She had intended to toss it in the garbage, and at the end of the school day she held it aloft over the trash can with that in mind. But some of the ink bled through the page (Gill was old fashioned and wrote a lot with pen and paper rather than typing everything). Sadness had been alert then and she saw herself mentioned there and as Riley had been feeling sad quite a bit recently, she pulled the lever which induced Riley to read it over.

Now it was the day after she read it, and she was itching to speak to Gill about it, but she had to wait till after class. Ugh.

Mr. Rambles was discussing _The Time Machine_ , which they would be reading over the weekend. "H.G. Wells' story wasn't the first ever time travel story. Mark Twain had one before him, and there are quite a few other older ones. But in _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_ , the titular character doesn't have something which H.G. Wells brings to the table, giving time-travel stories an extra-dimension. In all previous time travel tales, the person doing the time-traveling had no choice in the matter. They were dragged into it. But in _The Time Machine_ we have a character who devises to overcome this oddity and invent a device that will allow him to go to when he chooses, and he gets to decide when to start it up. No one holds a gun up to his head saying, 'Get in or I'll shoot.' It is all of his own volition. And this is what I want you to keep in mind when you're reading this weekend…"

Riley felt a daydream coming on. She was on a mountain watching a young woman with platinum blond hair make swirls of snow form by waving her hands. A snowman appeared, though admittedly he was missing a nose. Really freaky.

"Riley? Earth to Riley!" Gill said. He was holding a paper for her to take.

"Huh?" Riley said. She reached for the slip, thinking it'd be further details concerning Elsa, the snow queen of Arendelle. "Oh, thanks," she said, taking the sheet and blushing. It was a list of questions to answer regarding _The Time Machine_. Due Monday morning.

"Did you read the letter?" Gill asked.

"I did," Riley said. "You should really think of making a living, telling stories like that.

"It was a true story, actually," Gill said. "Actually happened and everything."

Inside Riley's mind, there was a buzz of activity. Everyone was getting ready for the next thing that was coming up, so Disgust decided to take matters into her own hands.

The cute green emotion pulled the lever, causing Riley to say, "Yeah, that's what true stories tend to do."

"Disgust!" Joy exclaimed. "What did you do that for?"

"I felt it was necessary," Disgust said with shifty eyes.

Joy pulled at the lever. "That's a fantastic story," Riley said. "Tell me more about Queen Elsa."

Gill seemed excited to finally have a listener. "She was gorgeous, with long blond hair. Though at the time she made Olaf it was all done up, for she had never been allowed to let her hair down…"

"This is all great stuff," Riley said, urged by Fear, who had pulled the lever with Joy leaning on his shoulder to make sure he didn't make Gill walk off annoyed. "Tell me more at lunch, okay? I don't want to be late for history."

"Oh, you'll love it," Gill said, his eyes twinkling. "Elsa's sister, Anna, is the hero of the story. True as glass." Then he walked off.

Sadness began crying.

"What's up, Sadness?" Joy asked, ever the emotion to cheer up her friends.

"Riley doesn't have any siblings. She's an only child. And that makes me so sad, to hear about two sisters who loved each other…"

"It'll be worth it," Joy said. "I bet it's the most exciting story ever! And Gill knows all about it."

"We could research it," Anger said. "In the library, if it's a true story."

"Yeah, we'd have to sift through a ton of books on Norway, though," Fear said.

"Norway? The country with the happiest people on Earth? I say it'd be rockin'!" Joy exclaimed, pumping her arms in the air.

"Except for the fact that we don't have the Dewey Decimal system memorized," Fear said. "And it'd take awhile to do so. Riley will be in college by then."

"Well, right now she has to learn about colonial America, so we'd best be alert," Joy said, as Riley sat down in her class behind a girl named Cammie.

"Nice chip in your teeth, Riley," Cammie said, turning around. "Did you get punched in your old hometown?"

"How would you like it if Riley punched you and gave you a complimentary chip?" Anger said, reaching for the lever. Joy held him back. "Hey, we're about to discuss Pocahontas. This is no time to be plotting hurting another person."

"And Squanto. Don't forget Squanto," Fear put in.

"One day in class we'll be discussing the Trail of Tears," Sadness said, looking more depressed than usual. "Those poor Indians!"

"I believe the politically correct term is 'Native Americans'," Disgust said, filing her nails. "Though I don't care all that much for being politically correct."

"Pocahontas had a friend among her fellow tribespeople," Riley's teacher was saying. "Nakoma was her name. She cared very deeply for Pocahontas' well-being, and so when she thought Pocahontas might be falling under the spell of an Englishmen, she alerted Kokoum to the trouble, and he came on his swift feet to rescue his darling."

"That's pretty touching," Joy said.

"Sounds like the Englishman was a bad sort," said Fear.

"Wait till we hear more before making a judgment," Anger said.

"Then Nakoma disappeared. She didn't come back for five years, and by then everyone had given her up for dead. And she looked just as she had when she left, having not grown much older at all."

"There's nothing strange about that, Ms. Tuck," Cammie said.

"No, perhaps not," Ms. Tuck said. "But then she vanished for another fifteen years, and when she came back she still didn't look any older."

"You're just trying to spook us, Ms. Tuck," said Cammie. "No way is that story true."

"Nah," Ms. Tuck said, with a wink. "The truth is that Nakoma died not long after her second return, and she never married. "No way is that story true."

"Nah," Ms. Tuck said, with a wink. "The truth is that Nakoma died not long after her second return, and she never married. It didn't help that her best friend was off in England, now wedded to John Rolfe. She had a sad life."

"I think I'm going to have a lie-down," Sadness said. "This is too depressing for me."

"You do that," Anger said. "I find it ridiculous that a history teacher would make up such tall tales. If she can do that, how is Riley supposed to believe Gill, who is after all, a preteen boy, and as unlikely to be the authority on anything that isn't Nike or football as a sand dollar is to be an authority on thority on anything that isn't Nike or football as a sand dollar is to be an authority on thority on anything that isn't Nike or football as a sand dollar is to be an authority on thority on anything that isn't Nike or football as a sand dollar is to be an authority on rhythm and blues songs."

"I don't know," Joy said. "Maybe their both telling the truth but since it sounds so farfetched to the ears of most people they're toning it down as much as possible."

"Seriously, time-travel?" Anger snapped. "Next you'll be asking me to sway Riley to a daydream about her visiting some future where a robot goes around healing people."

"Or harming them, more like," Fear contributed.

"Dr. Robot sounds like a character from a video game," Disgust said.

"Maybe one with a blue hedgehog," Fear supplied.

"Good thing people can't read Riley's mind," Disgust said. "They'd be revolted at the idea that that blue hedgehog that shares its name with a drive-thru fast-food chain is even in her mind at all."

"Better him than that pink elephant with whiskers," Anger said. "I hope to never see him again."

"Riley hasn't thought of him since she was four," Joy said. "I think we're good."

The bell rang and Riley stood up, shoving stuff in her backpack. She headed for the door, and there was Gill, waiting for her.

"Shall I take you to lunch, then?" he asked.

"Only if you're going to tell me about Queen Elsa," Riley said, guided by Joy.

"I'll do just that," he said, smiling. "The Tale of Two Sisters is what I'd call it, though, if I were to ever make a fictional account of it. For Elsa would not have said it was her story alone, but that of her and her sister, Anna, who showed her how to love."

"This boy seems to be obsessed with love," Fear said. "Don't you think Riley's a bit too young for that?"

"He's referring to familial love," Joy said. "Not the romantic kind. I think it's all fine."

So Riley and Gill headed for the lunchroom. On their way they passed a poster of a snowman. "Did the one Elsa made look anything like that?" Riley asked.

"Well, you're got to remember that they didn't have photographs back then," Gill said. "There are portraits that include him, however, and relative to the size of the sisters, he is quite small. Something like two feet tall. And not very broad. Sort of like a tiny snowman, about the size of a human toddler."

"Sounds interesting," Riley said, prompted by Joy. She was allured by the smells of tacos wafting from the cafeteria. "San Fran school lunchrooms make better food than I got back home," Riley said.

"I'm glad to hear you like something here," Gill said.

"It's a great place now," Riley said. "But I wasn't very happy about coming here originally."

"As long as we suit you fine now, everything's good," said he.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Riley snapped. Anger had shunted the lever to dangerous levels.

"Anger, why? He was just being kind," Joy said.

"Kind? He's ridiculing Riley's old hometown by insinuating that she'd obviously like San Francisco better."

"You're looking too much into what he said," Joy remarked. "I've got to rectify this."

She gave the buttons to the right of the lever a sequential tap.

"Sorry, Gill," Riley said. "I may've snapped at you a bit hard there. I miss my hometown, you know?"

"I understand," Gill said. "It's all good. But if I'm offending you…"

"No, it's fine," Riley said. "So, which line should be go in? Homestyle or the other one?"

"I feel like tacos, if that's okay with you."

"Sure, as long as they don't have broccoli on them," Riley said, which caused Gill to laugh. They took their spots in line, and Riley felt anxious with the thought that soon she'd hear about Elsa and Anna, who both sounded fascinating.


	2. Anna Taken

**Left Shoe on the Wrong Foot**

 **Chapter Two**

"Elsa, have you ever wondered what it'd be like to meet our emotions?" Anna asked her sister as she pulled clumps of grass out of the hillside they sat on. She was doing this absentmindedly, however, for she was at attention for hearing Elsa's answer.

"Meet our emotions? You mean, as if they were personified?"

"Yeah, like that. It would be so cool. You could talk to your fear, and calm your sadness."

"I haven't felt sad once since you unfroze after saving me from Hans," Elsa said.

"I haven't felt sad since Hans abandoned me, and then Olaf soothed me by teaching me what it means to love someone," Anna said. "You can learn a lot from him."

"Yes, you can," Elsa said, grinning. Then she grew serious. "So, what other emotions do you think people have?"

"Well, happiness for sure. Maybe Joy would be a better name. It's how I've felt for a long time. Having you in my life again and not separated from me by a closed door fills me with joy."

"What about anger?" Elsa asked.

"Oh yes, Anger's another emotion. Though I'm not too keen on it, except when it comes to Hans."

Both girls laughed at the memory. One of Hans' older brothers had sent Elsa a letter saying that Hans had been hit ;in his work in the stables as punishment by what Elsa had shot out of the birthday bugle on Anna's birthday. (Not that Hans' brother knew Elsa had fired it off. He just thought the queen and princess of Arendelle would enjoy hearing the anecdote after the trouble Hans had caused them.)

"I wonder how many emotions we have," Elsa said. "Joy, Anger, and Sadness are definite ones. Fear too, of course. But that can't be all."

"I'm sure there are several more," Anna said. "Maybe envy? Hans certainly had a lot of that."

"I'm not sure envy is an emotion so much as a choice," Elsa said. "You can choose to be jealous of someone for what they have or be glad of what you have. It's as simple as that."

"Couldn't you also say someone can choose to be sad, or angry, or afraid, or joyful?"

"Ah, but those aren't things that rely on someone else having something you covet. They can be influenced by such a scenario, but not really directly related to wanting what another person has."

"It's funny that they can't figure out that I'm in here," said Anna's Disgust, who was in charge of making Anna look beautiful (and who didn't really have to worry about much most of the time since Anna was gorgeous no matter what she wore or how she did her hair). "I really only take control of the levers when its dire. Like when Kristoff was saying that nasty thing about Hans picking his nose. Ugh."

"Well, he was sort of right," Anna's Fear said. "Hans more or less picked his nose in public by attempting to kill Elsa."

"That's a disgusting way to look at it," Disgust said.

"Hey, don't bring up how Elsa nearly died," Anna's Sadness said, from a corner where she huddled. "I don't want to recall that memory. It'll make me never want to move again."

In Elsa's head, there was a flurry of activity from her emotions. Elsa's Joy was in charge there too, especially now that she was alone with Anna on this hilltop some distance from the kingdom, the horse Anna had rode here, Elsa clinging to her back, grazing on grass below them.

"Anna's going to have to teach us to ride soon," Elsa's Joy said. "It'll be so much fun." She caused an ice horse to appear in the headquarters room and it cantered around jovially.

"Until we scrape our rear end on the hard ground," Elsa's Fear muttered.

A giant ice bear appeared behind him, and he darted behind a cover.

Most of Elsa's emotions resembled her with a plait of long hair behind them, but Elsa's fear looked like a mixture of her father and Hans, both men who had separated her from Anna, one out of love, and one out of greed for power.

"Thank goodness he's gone," Elsa's Anger said. She was tall and slender like the other emotions, though she had only been so for the last few years. Before that she had been male and broad-shouldered. Also short and stocky. However, when Elsa learned to control her powers, and also her emotions, they became as they were now, with four of them looking like her (although retaining their original hue) and one resembling two men in her life that had occluded her joy…

"I feel like crying," Elsa's Sadness said, and she pulled at the lever which caused tears to stream down the queen's face, which did not go unnoticed by her sister, though they were silent.

"Elsa, what's wrong?" Anna asked.

"I was just thinking how much I lost you before. Though we lived in the same castle, we never saw one another. And then I nearly lost you a second time, and a third. And it would drive me mad to lose you again…"

"Don't worry, Elsa, I'm here," Anna said, letting Elsa rest her head against Anna's chest. The redhead stroked the hair of her sister.

"There they are!" shouted a voice. Men in dark coats were aiming harpoons at the pair of them.

"Get it together!" Elsa's Joy urged her. Elsa stood up and fired off a volley of ice at one of the men. She caught his leg and completed the job, then turned to the other two.

She did not hear Anna get muffled, or see her sliding down the hill and placed in front of a man on her horse. The horse's mouth had been stuffed and it could not make any noise that way, and though Elsa heard a gallop she was focusing on fighting the other two assailants, not for herself, but to protect Anna, her dear sister whom she could not bear to have struck by the weapons of these miscreants.

She froze a second one but the third guy was fairly agile and he sent off a harpoon that landed inches from her foot. She sent a stream of ice his way and he rolled over to avoid it, shooting another harpoon that aimed at her chest. She caused a thin rabbit of a soldier to appear, formed of ice sort of like Marshmallow, except rather than being broad it would be lithe. This creature took the harpoon shots of the third assailant without flinching, which allowed Elsa to shoot at the culprit and hit him when he least expected it. Once he was completely covered, the thin rabbit snowcreature lifted the three ice sculptured men and carried them off.

Elsa turned back into relief to face Anna, only to find she wasn't there.

In the interior of her mind, the emotions were struggling to come to terms with what had happened.

"Huh?" Elsa's Disgust asked. "Did she leave us and ride her horse back to the castle?"

"Nah, she'd never do that," Elsa's Anger said. "She loves us. And I think she would've fought with the men if she had not been prevented from doing so. Which it really makes me angry to think that someone might've done something to prevent our sister from being active."

"Anna's gone?" Elsa's Sadness asked. "I'd better take over then."

Though she said this, Elsa's Sadness didn't move a muscle from her corner, which was far removed from the control panel in headquarters.

"Elsa's just sitting there," Elsa's Disgust said. "She'll get all icky from the dirt."

"I'm not sure she can move," Elsa's Fear said, having returned from his curtain retreat. "Remember how it was when she heard Hans tell her Anna had died?"

"But Anna's not dead," Elsa's Joy said. "She can't be."

"How can we know? Whoever has her could be torturing her."

"If they torture Anna I'll make sure they pay," Elsa's Anger said. "Actually, I'll make them pay either way. She can't have gone of her own free will."

"Nope," Elsa's Sadness said. "She was taken, and we don't know to where. She's gone."

"We can find her," Joy said. "Before anything rotten happens."

"You better hope we can," Disgust said. "Because Elsa's mood has just dropped to overwhelming apathy toward anything that happens, unless she hears a trail that will lead her to find Anna."

She pointed to the screen, where Elsa ripped apart a document from the Duke of Weselton. Kristoff had received the message and relayed it to her because he thought she'd want to read it over. Though the document was gone, it still burned in her memory. Sadness crept out of her corner, approaching the lever. She pulled it across to bring up the words the missive said to Elsa's active memory:

 _Dear Queen of Arendelle,_

 _I know my mail has not been reaching you. But ignorance of what I have threatened is no reason I should not carry out the threat. As such, if you do not send me a thousand jewels by the eighteenth of September, I will have to take them by force, even if it means taking you prisoner. I know a prince who would love to pay me the amount I require should I deliver your person to him. So expect me to strike if you do not pay up. I have warned you. No reply is needed, just the jewels._

"It's only the fourteenth," Disgust said. "He should've given us four more days."

"How do you k now the Duke of Weselton is the one who took Anna?" Fear asked.

"Well, we don't know, but it's a lead to go on."

"I say when we get back to the castle, we have a boat set sail to Weselton and case the place out," Joy suggested.

"Great idea," Sadness said. "Though it'll take us awhile to get there without a horse, and we don't know how to ride even if we did have one available."

"We don't need a horse, we've got seven league boots in the form of ice."

Elsa stood up, determined now, and caused an ice path to appear, and she took a few steps, advancing down the hill. When she returned the castle she would further her plans for the rescue of her sister, whether she was in Weselton, the Southern Isles, or anywhere else, she would be found.


	3. Riley's New Emotion

**Left Shoe on the Wrong Foot**

 **Chapter Three**

"And then Anna was kidnapped, right under Elsa's nose! And she sat there for a few moments feeling overcome by misery. For her precious sister was snatched from her! "

"That's a terribly sad story," Riley said. "But if Elsa has ice powers, why would anyone go against her?"

"Because they knew they could use her sister to get to her."

"Well, that'd be easier for me to see if I werne't an only child, I suppose."

"Yeah," Gill said, getting up. "You'd better read _The Time Machine_ this weekend."

"Oh, but _Shoes of Doom 2_ is came out today. I need to go see it."

"Trust me, Riley. _Shoes of Doom_ can wait."

Inside Riley's mind, Fear's ears had perked up. "Did she just say she's planning on seeing the _Shoes of Doom_ sequel?"  
"Uh, surprise?'" Disgust said. "We hadn't meant to tell you."

"She can't go see that film! I won't have it! She's going to go home, crack open the H.G. Wells' novel, and read."

Raising the control as high as it would go, Fear caused Riley to think of _The Time Machine_ , how pleasant it would be to explore its depths, and less frightening than watching _Shoes of Doom 2_. Of course, Fear didn't know what went on in the book he was urging Riley to read. She went to her next class just thinking about how great it'd be to just relax, sit in an armchair, and persue the book that was her assignment.

Joy knew that Riley really wanted to see the sequel to _Shoes of Doom_. So she thought that she'd encourage Riley to go check out the Illustrated Classic Editions version of _The Time Machine_ , which her junior high library. Fear didn't object, and after Riley's last class she hurried to the library to pick up the book which could be read in much less time than the official text , and Riley could finish it before going to the movie.

The book fell out of Riley's hands and opened to a page with a freaskish monkey creature looking hauntingly at a man with blondish hair. The pictures were in black and white but you could still tell things about the color the illustrator intended you to see. (It didn't hurt that Riley had an active imagination which provided color visuals for illustrations devoid of hue.

Fear fainted at the sight. Riley read the caption, "The Time Traveler Meets the Morlocks."

"Looks more interesting than Shoes of Doom, wouldn't you say?" Gill said, startling her.

She dropped the book and bent down to pick it up. He head smashed into Gil's chin when she shot up.

"I'm sorry," they both said at the same time.

"It's all right," Gill said, when they both stopped laughing. "By the way, I never noticed you had a chip in your tooth before. It's really cute."

"I've never heard it being described as being cute before," Disgust said. "Does he really like it?"

"I think he's sincere," Joy said. "He's got to be."

"Thanks," Riley said, blushing.

"You're welcome," Gill said.

"I think he really likes her," Joy said.

"I'm not ready for Riley to get a crush," Sadness said. "Crushes mean heartbreak. Heartbreak means depression, and Riley is too young for all that."

"Let her grow up at her old rate," Anger said. "If she likes this guy, there's nothing you" can say against it."

"You going to check that out?" Gill asked.

"Er, yeah," Riley said. "I know we're supposed to read the original text but how much different could this Great Illustrated Classic version be?"

In Gill's mind a world of activity was taking place.

"She hasn't read _The Time Machine_ before!" Gill's Fear said. "Will she follow our clue at all?"

"Yes, she will," Gill's Anger said. "Why do you think she'd check out the Illustrated Classic Editions version? She wants to make sure she gets the assignment done this weekend. Which means by Monday she'll know the story."

Gill's joy did a pirouette around his Fear and Anger. "And she'll be so curious by the time she sees what we've got for her that we'll be sure to entice her."

Gill's disgust leaned her elbows against the control panel. "She doesn't even know that there's an extra chapter int here not written by H.G. Wells. If she answers questions by referring to the events in that chapter, Mr. Rambles will know she read this version."

"So we'd best ask for her phone number to obviate that happening," Gill's Fear said, causing the lever to be maneuvered in a zigzag pattern.

"So uh, could I have your phone number?" Gill asked. "Just so we can help each other on the homework, you know."

"I don't need help," Riley said, feeling offended at the suggestion.

"I just meant because you'll be training for hockey as well as doing homework this weekend. " 

"You know…I play hockey?"

Gill noddied. "Cammie told me."

"Well, she should've have said anything to you of the sort. Should've kept her big mouth shut."

"Hey, she was just trying to let people know how wonderful you are, Riley. No need to get offended."

"Who said anything about being offended? I just wished you'd not listen to anything Cammie says about me, that's all."

"All right," Gill said. "But you do play hockey, don't you?"

"'Course I do," Riley said. "I love ice hockey. I even have this wor—"

"Don't let him know," Anger said. "He'll tell his friend and then they'll tell someone else, and before we know it Riley won't be thought of as the creator of her intense hockey world."

"Anger! She's just confiding in a boy she likies," Joy said. "Don't worry too much about it."

"I'm not letting her give one of her secrets from her Imagination Land to some random guy in her class who is becoming friendly with her far too quickly!"

"You were the one who said that Riley needs to grow up," Sadness said, pointing an accusing finger at Anger.

"You're very funny when you're trying to be concillatory," Anger said, smiling at her.

Riley passed _The Time Machine_ to the librarian, who stamped it and gave it back to her. "I hope you're not in Mr. Rambles' English class," she said.

"I am," Riley said. "Is that a problem?"

"Not really. So long as you're careful. That book will help you pass his assignment, but watch out for the chapter entitled "The Golden Age of Science.' Shirtley Bogart wrote that herself and it has no bearing whatsoever on H.G. Wells' original story, though it is quite interesting, I assure you."

The light reflected on the librarian's glasses, encouraging Riley to give the book a thorough read. Then she moved on so that the next person in line could check out their books.

"I suppose she doesn't need to give Gill her number after all," Gill's Fear said.

"Eh, she'll read the note," said Gill's Anger. "That's all that matters."

"And if she doesn't?" Gill's Disgust said.

"Then Sadness takes the wheel," said Gill's Fear, which caused Gill's Sadness to look very excited indeed.

Riley and Gill parted and she rode her bike home. Then she chbecked the showtimes of _Shoes of Doom 2_ to make sure she had the right time picked out (though she had done several checks of the perfect time for going many times before.) Then she plunged into _The Time Machine_ , reading avidly and admiring the pictures on the opposing pages.

When she finished the first chapter a slip of paper fell out. Wondering if the previous person to check the book out had left it there, she unfolded the paper and began reading.

 _Come meet me at Preghorn's Barn, on Monday afternoon at four-thirty. I know you'll have hockey practice before then, but I think I'll be worth your time."_

 _From,_

 _Gill_

"When did Gill slip this in her book?" Disgust asked.'

"Access Memory Banks," Joy said aloud. A flash image of Riley in the library appeared. Gill had stood quite close to Riley and could have very easily slipped it in.

"We're not going to let him control us, are we?" Anger said. "Because it's not in my nature to do that."

"Who said anything about him controlling us?" Joy supplied. "We're just going to meet him. And anyway, it's three days from now! Plenty of time to consider it. Right now, though, we'd best head off to the movie."

"For sure," Sadness said. "Though _Shoes of Doom_ only had a few sad parts, and I don't expect its sequel to change this."

Fear appeared, having woken up. "What's going on?" he asked.

"We're going to see _Shoes of Doom 2_ ," Joy said.

"Greuze and Van Gogh Kangeroo Pals? That sounds delightful."

"He sounds concked out," Disgust said. "Joy, you should kiss him."

"Why me? You can do it better."

"Yeah, but if you don't do it, we won't get to see _Shoes of Doom 2_."

"Fine," Joy said, rolling her eyes. She started to learn forward, her lips puckered, when a new female emotion, this one silver and with a swirl hairdo, kissed Fear harder than any of the emotions had ever seen anyone kiss another.

"Who are you?" Joy asked her, when she pulled her lips from Fear's, causing him to plummet to the ground.

"My name is Love," said the new emotion. "Riley's going mad over this Gill boy, so I'm here. Most people try to keep Love hidden though, according to the manuals. But one day I'll be the most important emotion to Riley. So ya'll better watch out. I think Fear's already ready for my hostile takeover."

She sauntered out of headquarters, and for the first time that any of them could recall, a flicker of anger appeared on Joy's face, which was quickly replaced by annoyance, and even that melted away to stoic indifference. Which is a lot to say in regards to Joy.

"Okay, whoever that emotion was, we will not let her spoil our evening," Joy said. "Let's go see the movie."

Disgust and Anger exchanged glances. They knew that Joy never got ruffled that way. What made this new emotion any different? And could Joy really tolerate her? Though she looked calm now, a minute before they had seen clear signs of wrath in her face. Love, as the new emotion claimed to be, was invading Joy's composure. And they had a feeling that if someone wasn't done about Love, Joy might go helter-skelter. But this was so unlike the yellow emotion that they didn't know what to think, except that for now, they should distract her. Lest she let her anger consume her.


	4. Prospects

**Left Shoe on the Wrong Foot**

 **Chapter Four**

Riley was heading toward the location Gill had set for her to meet him, a warehouse near the pier.

She knew this was a little dangerous, meeting a guy she never knew before a few days ago at the pier. But she needed some excitement in her life, and she had a feeling that the reason Gill called her down here was related to _The Time Machine_.

She turned a corner and heard ships making a splash at the dockyards, quite nearby. Then she saw a butterfly flutter near. She watched it for a minute, feeling that it was embarking on a journey. She just hoped she could find out when her own journey would commence.

She saw a sign on a bundle of hay as she made her way to the warehouse, wending around crates and stacks of jars. It was so odd to see a sign attached to hay that she cocked her head and decided to remain where she was until she had read it.

 _Do you want to meet your emotions? Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger….and, well, there's one other one whom we haven't identified yet. But we can bring them outside your head, and you can meet them. If you're willing._

 _Come to the MIND EXPO, on Saturday, February 13_ _th_ _at the Welcox Supercenter near Maxal Park on Grunby Street. Be there for the thrill of a lifetime!_

"Meet my emotions?" Riley said. "That's insane. It's like they think that emotions are people!"

"But we are people," Anger said. "Doesn't she realize that?"

"I'm not sure any humans know their emotions are like us," Joy said. "Of course we couldn't know that unless we interviewed a few people. Maybe we can encourage Riley to ask them."

"But this is scary science!" Fear said, looking frightened out of his wits. "If they can extract us from Riley's mind, then she'll lose her ability to feel whatever emotions they remove. And how do we know we can get back _in_?"

"It's not like Riley is going to it," Joy said. "She's just thinking about it. I bet the idea of meeting us thrills her. The pleasure scope seems to indicate such."

She indicated a screen that showed that Riley was thinking intently about going to that expo.

"Hey Disgust," Anger said. "Why are you huddled up in that corner?"

"They don't know about me," Disgust said, not looking too happy. "They've identified all the rest of you guys, but not me."

"I know all about being miserable," said Sadness, coming near Disgust. "Tell Auntie Sadness all about it."

Disgust shoved her away and took a more remote place to brood.

Outside Riley's mind, she was still staring at the poster when she felt a tap on her shoulder and turned around to find Gill standing there, looking sheepish.

"Hey," Riley said.

"Hey," said Gill. "You like the thought of meeting your emotions?" he asked Riley.

"A bit," Riley admitted. "But they don't have the technology perfected, do they? Says there's five emotions but they've only identified four."

"I think there's a sixth one, actually," Gill said. "Or at least I heard there is one."

"Oh?" Riley asked. "Do you know the identity of the sixth emotion?"

"Yeah, it's the feeling you get when you want to kill Darth Vader," Gill said. Riley punched his arm, then stared at her fist.

"Oops, sorry, I didn't mean to do that," she said, a tad confused.

Inside her mind, the emotions were staring at the screen. "What just happened?" Fear asked.

There was the sound of an elevator rising behind them, and Love appeared, as silver as ever. "Did you love my first interference with Riley's infatuation?" she said, flipping her cigarette holder around in her hands.

"She punched him!" Joy said. "Was that your stunt?"

"'Course it was, sweetie," Love said, tickling Joy under the chin. Joy glared at her, which was not something Riley's other emotions could say they'd ever witnessed her doing before.

"That wasn't called for," Anger said.

"Trust me, little red man, she's going to be going to high places with this boy."

"She is eleven-years-old," Joy said. "You should not be saying where she's going or what she'll be doing."

"Oh, but don't you see? My very existence in her mind indicates I will have a large hand in what goes on here from now on. She had a crush on lover boy there, and boom! I was born. So you guys and gals better get used to me, because I'm not going anytime soon."

She and Joy exchanged looks of loathing. "One day Riley will be all mine for the most part, and you'll all be has-beens," she said as one last snooty remark, before descending in her elevator like tube.

"She thinks she's something special," Joy said. "Not understanding the wonder of being a from-birth emotion, since Love has only existed in her mind for the last few days."

"Don't let it get to your head, Joy," Fear said. "Let's just tune in to what's going on with Riley."

"Oh yeah, let's!" Joy said, sounding suddenly more cheerful.

But what she saw before her did little to gladden her spirit. Riley and Gill were holding hands.

"Uh-uh, no way is the eleven-year-old I live in holding hands with some boy!" Fear said. "I won't have it!"

He punched the button for him on the controls. Riley extricated her hand from Gill's as they walked along.

"There's the warehouse, up ahead," Gill said, pointing and not seeming to notice that Riley was no longer holding his hand.

"Splendid," Riley said, and she let him lead her to it.

"Now, be ready to be surprised," Gill said, as he unlocked the door to the warehouse with a key, and yanked it open.

"How do you have a key?" Riley asked.

"My uncle owns this place," Gill said. "He let me use it for an experiment."

His gaze was looking beyond her, into the warehouse. She followed it and saw a huge contraption there, as big as Santa's sleigh, which nearly made her quiver with fright.

"Is that what I think it is?" she asked.

"Yep," Gill said. "It's a time machine."


	5. Into the Past

**Left Shoe on the Wrong Foot**

 **Chapter Five**

"Wow," Riley said. That was the best that could really be said during the current circumstances. Wow.

"I know it's a bit sudden, me springing this on you," Gill said. "But...I thought you might enjoy taking a trip."

"You mean...travel through time? For real?" Riley asked, wonderingly.

"Is that what he really said," Fear asked Riley's other emotions. "That he'll take us back to the day of the dinosaurs?"

"He didn't say we'd be going into the past," Disgust said. "It could very well be the future."

Riley had already climbed in the passenger's side, and was examiningthe dashboard...the machine was built like Santa's sleigh, except that it had two levers. There was also a panel displaying the current date.

"So, one goes to the past, and one goes to the future?" Riley asked Gill, who had taken the seat next to her.

"That's pretty much how it works, yeah," he said.

"She actually climbed _in_ the machine!" Fear said, getting frantic. "Does she not know all the dangers of the past? Dinosaurs are the least of it. There's Vikings, Crusaders, Huns..." he started saying, ticking things off his fingers. "And that's just the people! There's also diseases like scurvy and the Black Plague. If we're lucky."

"Fear, this is her first chance to be with a boy on an adventure," Disgust said. "Sort of like a date. Don't try to dissuade her from going, because I think she ought to."

"The past is wonderful!" Joy said brightly, waving her arms. "We could see the signing of the Declaration of Independence, or walk the gardens of Nebuchadnezzar when they were first built..."

"Human history is full of more sadness than joy, at least as far as I know," Sadness said. "I mean, when in history class did we ever study anything happy?"

"Well, there was Charlemagne," Joy said. "Wonderful ruler, had a beautiful palace..."

"And the monarchy keeping the peasants in check," Anger said, breezily.

"Oh come on guys. This will be fun! Riley used to go back in time with Bing Bong! Or at least she did once."

"Yeah, but she doesn't remember Bing Bong now, does she?" rejoined Anger. "So it's not like she'd be thrilled on that account."

"Let's face it," Sadness said. "The past is a dreary, dismal place. Didn't you hear Riley's teacher saying how Marie Antoinette mocked the peasant women who came to ask for provisions?"

"I remember that lesson!" Joy exclaimed, pumping her right fist in the air. "She said, 'Let them eat cake! That sounds fun to me."

"She was referring to bread crumbs," Sadness aid. "Not very satisfying."

"I remember the teacher saying something about the smell of streets in London in Shakespeare's day," Disgust said. "Riley will have to hold her nose all the time if we go to then."

"Gill wouldn't take us to a smelly place," Joy said. "He's too kind."

"You're right," said a voice none of them wanted to hear, as silvery as its speaker. "He is ferociously sweet. Which is why we're going to take this up a notch."

"Love!" Joy barked. "Stop interfering with Riley's life."

"I get on your nerves, don't I?" Love said, standing up on her tiptoes and looking down at joy with glee etched on her face.

"No one gets on my nerves," Joy said. "But you mess up perfectly good aspects of Riley's life by being here."

"What are you doing down in your sub-apartment anyway?" asked Anger, who seemed to be the only one slightly interested in Love's day-to-day doings.

"I'm brewing a potion that will make Riley so lovesick for Gill that she won't ever want to return to 2015 with him," Love said snidely.

"Not come back to 2015?" Fear said. "But that means...you intend to keep us in the past or the future?"

"Anywhere-or anywhen, I should say-is good, so long as Riley is with Gill."

"That's it. We're getting off this thing," Fear said, punching one of the buttons on his control panel.

Riley slid out of her seat. "Uh, on second thought, I think we should try this some other time."

In Gill's head, Sadness took the wheel, his Joy stepping aside.

"You don't want to travel with me?" Gill said.

"Er, maybe not this once," Riley said. "I mean, I need time to consider..."

"Time, fine...we can do it next week, or the week after..."

"I like this guy's style," Love said appreciatively.

"I've got a lot to think about if I'm going to be time-traveling at any point in the near future."

"I understand," Gill said. "But we can see Arendelle any old time."

"Arendelle?" Riley said, Joy having taken her station. "As in, where Queen Elsa and her sister Anna lived?'

"Yep. We'll go see them the year that Elsa started ruling. Or the year after I should say."

"Wait a second," Anger said. "We are in the middle of California. How the *bleep* are we supposed to get to Norway from here?"

"Maybe this is a time _and_ a space machine!" Joy said enthusiastically. "It would take us exactly where we need to go, as well as the when."

"That's not how it was in the book," Sadness said.

"That book was too scary for Riley," Fear said. "It made the Dream Production workers give her some freaky nightmares over the past two nights."

"Yeah, we need to sleep it on it before we trust that this funky vehicle will take us to Arendelle," said Anger.

Disgust was standing over by herself. She looked to be deep in thought.

"Is there something on your mind?" Joy said.

"Well, this is a time machine, right? And anyone can use it," Disgust said.

"Yeah, so?"

"Well, what if...by missing this chance...we never get to go back in time? There's no guarantee it'll be here next week, or the week after."

"And Gill might give the offer to another girl," Love said. "Like Miss Eyeshadow."

"I saw her talking to him before lunch," Fear said. "He might very well do that."

"So you think we should go now?" Joy said.

"Well, an opportunity lost is an opportunity wasted," Disgust said. "So let's do it."

"But what about the smell of the past?" Anger said. "That was ticking you off a few moments ago."

"That's seventeenth century London we were talking about. We're going to nineteenth century Norway. The smell shouldn't be as horrendous then."

"All right, then," Joy said. "Let's go."

"On second thought," said Riley, "I finished Ms. Jones' homework before coming here, so I think I can spare a little time for going to Arendelle, if you still want to go now."

Gill's face brightened. "Riley, with time travel, the one thing you do _not_ have to worry about is being late. We have all the time in the world."

She smiled at him and climbed aboard again.

"Off to Arendelle," Gill said, putting the down lever to the left.

"Uh, wait...how are we going to get to Norway from San Francisco?"

"I'll show you once we're safely nestled in 1845," said Gill. "Luckily it'll be before the forty-niners come to mine for gold, or we'd be in high danger."

He brought the lever to a standstill somewhere in a couple of inches

At first it seemed like nothing was happening. They were in a warehouse after all. But then it went down, after about twenty minutes, being reduced to a stack of bricks, and the machine used to construct it...the sun was seen, though in a a blink of an eye it went across the sky. Then it was dark. Tut the sun came up again.

"Does the sun seem to be moving in the wrong direction to any of you?" Fear asked.

"A little," Disgust remarked.

"Hey, that bird is flying backward!" Joy said. "And now it's gone..."

"The buildings are vanishing," Sadness said, and now even the sun was moving across the sky in a second, the night following shortly after.

"What's happening to the city?" Riley asked.

"Well, we're going to before it was really San Francisco," Gill said. "Though there will still be people there, when we arrive. Just not any gold diggers. Uh, the literal sort."

The days and nights spun faster and faster. Riley was feeling dizzy, and her emotions weren't doing too much better.

"Who knew traveling 150 years back in time could make you feel this disoriented?" Anger said, as the dial turned to 1865.

"The Civil War must be going on in America right now," Fear said, shaking with tremors. "I hope Riley doesn't get hit by a stray bullet."

"Don't be silly," said Anger. "Most of the fighting took place to the east of there. No bullets could possibly hit Riley when the war is that far off."

"Just another fifteen years back," Gill said. "Which is about five minutes for us."

"You still haven't told me how we're going to get to Arendelle," Riley said.

"I think you'll find it quite intriguing," Gill said, grinning broadly.

"Nice teeth," Love said.

"Will you go back to your apartment and leave us in peace?" Joy asked, irritated.

"Oh but I just got here," Love said. "And anyhow, you've been with Riley her whole life. I'm new here, since you hit the Puberty button. So..."

"And now we're in 1845," Gill said, the sun coming to rest. The machine they were in was nestled behind a courthouse. The sun remained stationary, giving Riley a feeling of vertigo.

"I heard something behind here," came a gruff voice.

"Come on, there can't be anything behind the courthouse," said another voice, this one brisk and feminine.

"Now it's time to use our defense mechanism against the people of this time," Gill said. "Watch this."

He punched a button Riley had not noticed before on the far right of the machine. It was beneath the "forward" lever which presumably would thrust them into the future. Gill also had to reach across Riley to get it.

Two very surprised people, one a man with broad shoulders, the other a woman with heavy make-up, appeared around the corner of the courthouse. Their faces molded into expressions of surprise. Then even as Riley watched, ice appeared on the grass, then crept up their legs until it covered them completely.

Not only did this happen to the people before them, but also the courthouse, and the fence a few yards away. Also the building on the other side which looked very dismal and could very well be a prison.

"Ice!" Fear exclaimed. "Where did that come from?"

"Uh, I'm not sure," Joy said.

"I bet Gill knows. He should tell us," Anger put in.

"Calm down guys," said Disgust. "Let's wait for him to explain."

"What did you do?" Riley asked.

"I froze everybody on the planet," Gill said.

"Er, why?"

"So we can move through space."

"Did he say we're going into outer space?" asked Fear. "This machine can turn into a spaceship too?"

"Relax, 'fraidy cat," said Anger. "He just means we can go across the ice to get to Norway. Sheesh."

"By space, you mean we'll get to Arendelle by driving on the ice?" Riley inquired.

"Exactly," said Gill.

"That sounds scary," Riley said, prompted by fear.

"Eh, nothing dangerous can harm us while the world is frozen. And when we arrive at our destination, we can unfreeze it."

"Okay, if you say so," Riley said. She relaxed in her seat as Gill punched another button below the "backward" lever. Then the sleigh started moving of its own accord.

Riley saw frozen people who had been walking along, frozen people in the middle of kissing, frozen animals around such as squirrels and pigeons. The trees were cloaked in ice as they raced past.

But there were endless rows of trees. "It's quite a forest here," Riley remarked.

"Som eof these lands aren't touched by pioneers quite yet," Gill said. "Though when we get to Utah we'll start to see real settlements, and fewer trees."

The sleigh was moving at about the speed of a car. "It's going to take us awhile to get to Arendelle, isn't it?" Riley asked, sighing.

"If's like time travel. If it took only an instant, that would be far too convenient. We have to actually travel through time, and so here we have to travel through space, there's no tube that would take us there in a few seconds."

"If I had known how long it was going to take to get there, I might not have agreed to come," Riley said, elbows on the edge of the sleigh, Anger at the controls within her mind.

"Oh come on, Riley. This is fun," Gill said, pumping his fist in the air (and narrowly avoiding slamming his fist into a branch).

Riley only glanced at him briefly before resuming her moping attitude. Sadness was at the wheel, and she thought of how her friends were behind in the present, other than Gill, and she was here over 150 years before any of them would be born.

Suddenly a lake loomed ahead. Riley smiled at it briefly, but she knew the ice on it wasn't natural. It was caused by Gill's trick. So her smile faded.

The sleigh began to pick up speed. They were going through the desert. Then they sped past trees in the blink of an eye, and makeshift shacks, and pioneer buggies. Riley found it all really dizzying.

"Why are we moving so fast?" she asked.

"Well, it's like when we were time-traveling. The longer we do it the faster we go."

"So, how weill you stop us in Arendelle?"

"Easy. I'll just punch the button to stop once we're in Iceland. By the time we reach Arendelle, it'll half of its own accord."

"Wait a second, that's where the Prairie Dogs train," Riley started to say when a building loomed ahead. "We're in Minnesota," she said, looking back at the building.

"It can't be the same building," Gill said. "This is 170 years before you lived here. No way is that the one you've been in to train for hockey."

Riley looked at him with a disgruntled gaze. She could've done without the reminding that no one where hear of the Prairie Dogs hockey team for ages, that the people she saw frozen here would not live to see it, their grandchildren wouldn't be there for it, and if their great-grandchildren were it would only be after they were over a century old themselves.

Brooding on these depressing thoughts, Riley soon saw they were on the East Coast, for there loomed the White House, as chiseled and pristine as in the present day.

Then they were on the Atlantic Ocean. And here the ice was very curious, for it had frozen the sea in the middle of shifting tides, and there were ice waves up to four feet high off the surface of the water.

But Riley found that even the Atlantic Ocean had been a short trip across considering tat they were already coming upon land...they had crossed the sea in seconds...

"Time to press the stop button," Gill said, reaching for the "forward" lever and punching the button. They shot past a wedding scene and kept on moving, finally coming to a standstill in a fish market on the coast of owhere they were.

Gill pulled out a sphere from his pocket. On it were a few lights.

"What's that for?"

"It's the longitude and latitude," Gill said. "Tells us where we are."

"We should be in Norway now,shouldn't we?"

"I'm not sure this _is_ Norway," Gill said, moving things around. Then after a couple of minutes, her turned to Riley. "All right, we're not done yet."

"We've still got to travel?" Riley asked, shivering.

"Just a few hundred kilometers," Gill said. He punched the button beneath the "forward" lever again.

Now they psed along at the regular pace their last ride had started out with. But it didn't take them long to cross the water again.

Soon they were riding through mountainous land. And then Riley saw a huge castle with ice steps leading up to it.

"What is that?" she asked Gill.

"Whatever it is, I love it," said Joy.

"It's Queen Elsa's former castle," Gill said. "When she decided to seclude herself from Anna."

"That sounds sad," said Sadness. "Why would she want to cut herself off from her sister if she loved her so?"

"She may've had a good reason," Joy said.

Then another castle was spotted ahead. The sleigh was picked up speed. Gill punched the button, and it skidded forward for awhile before coming to a halt.

"Okay, time to unfreeze everything," he said. Her reachered over on his side and pressed a button there. The blue of the ice began receeding. Riley could hear sounds returning, crickets, frogs, etc. Even the frozen animals around turned to life again.

And then a young woman with platinum blond hair rar toward them, though she didn't seem to pay the any heed.

"There's Queen Elsa," Gill said, when the majestic, and beautifully dressed woman, ran into the sleigh and toppled backwards.

"Uh, did Queen Elsa just faint?" Riley asked.

"Yes," Gill said. "And if we don't revive her, we'll be blamed for causing harm to the queen."

"How can we revive her?" Riley asked.

"Well, if Anna were here and we could convince her to help us, we'd have her back to consciousness in a jiffy."

"Well, let's go find Anna then."

"Oh, but we can't yet, Gwen," Gill insisted.

"We need to," said she, sliding out of the sleigh.

"Riley! They'll think you harmed her! Please get back in the sleigh, we need to something first!"

"What is it we need to do?" Riley asked, curiously.

"Get a language translator. Remember, we don't know how to speak Norwegian. Or at least I don't."

"I haven't really studied any Norwegian either," Riley said, getting back in the passenger's seat.

"They don't teach it in Minnesota?" Gill asked, facetiously. He pulled the forward lever to the right.

Once again the sun began rising in the west and setting in the east, but it was going at a regular speed at the moments.

"We've seen this before," Anger said. "What's that Gill playing at?"

"Where are we going to get this language translator," Riley asked.

"To the future."

"I can see that, but where?"

"The future from our time. When robots are what everyone has, when Botfighting is illegal, and when language translators are little more than something you can put in your ear to studey any language.

And the days kept going by faster and faster, till Riley became dizzy watching it.

At last Gill pressed the button. "2065," he remarked, looking at the dial. ""All right, I'm going to have to go search for the implant/translator. You stay here and watch the sleigh."

"Sure, I'll watch the sleigh," Anger said. "But I won't be happy about it."

He disappeared from view.

"Well, now that he's gone, we have the time machine to ourselves."

"Don't pull that lever!" Fear exclaimed, as Riley reached for it. "Time traveling without an escort would be a sure way to get us all killed."

"Well, what are we supposed to do?" Sadness asked. "Sit here and twiddle our thumbs?"

Riley shrank back in here seat. But then she saw a movement ahead, and she had to check it. Sliding out of the sleign, she turned to follow that site.

"She can make her way back," Disgust said, to Fear who was shaking uncontrollably.

"Yeah, we're not losting site of the time machine," JOy said, though they had run a good distance by now and Riley had stopped to watch a dove.

When Riley had shaken off gazing at the bird, she turned around. The Sleigh didn't seem to be around.

"We're lost!" Sadness exclaime.d

"It's okay," said Joy. "We can find our way back."

"But it won't be easy," said Disgust.

"Yet me must do it," said Joy. "Because Riley being lost in time could upset her extremly. And we still need to meet Queen Elsa, and Princess Anna of Arendelle."


	6. Hiro and Riley Meet

**Left Shoe on the Wrong Foot**

 **Chapter Six**

Hiro Hamada felt lonely.

Not lonely in the sense of not having people to hang out with. He got to see his friends every day pretty much. But ever since he and Honey Lemon had their latest fight, and they agreed to break up, he wanted to get back with her, but she always seemed to have her schedule full so that he couldn't get a time to meet with her, and she wouldn't answer his calls.

Now he was on Baymax' back flying toward Scandinavia. Earlier Baymax had asked him if visiting another country for awhile would help with his fluctuating concerns about love, whether he could reignite what he he had with Honey Lemon, or find it elsewehre. Hiro had responded in the affirmative. He needed this, though what he really wanted was a way to earn Honey's forgiveness.

"I think she does forgive Hiro for what he said," his Joy was saying to the rest of the emotions. "I mean, she still thinks of him as a friend."

"Yes, but she' won't take us back as a boyfriend," said his Disgust. He shot a dart at the dartboard affixied to the headquarters all. It was a new addition to HIro's mind, the Dartboard of Messing Up. His emotions tossed darts at it whenever they felt like pushing the button and pressing the levers would be a mistake.

"Life was so much easier fifty years ago," Hiro's Anger said. "I bet a girl from 2015 wouldn't think so badly of Hiro."

"Yeah, well, we don't live in 2015," Disgust said. "This is good ol' 2065. And we're certainly not going to find a girl in Finland."

"Maybe Norway?" Joy put in. He had a dart in his hand, indicating he was afraid he might do something that would mess things up for Hiro if he took the controls.

"Norway makes me think of Anna," said his Sadness.

"Oh come on, guys," Joy said. She was the only female of Hiro's emotions. It had not always been that way, but as the manuals indicated, emotions sometimes changed genders, in fact, from what they seemed to say, most emotions become the gender that the person they help guide identifies as most. Joy was a bit afraid of becoming male. On the one hand, she was glad that Hiro identified himself as a guy. But on the other hand, she liked being female. Of course, Hiro didn't know she was there, but supposing he had known, would he want her to change? Sadness and Disgust used to be female. The former changed after Tadashi died. Joy tried to convince the blue remotion to remain female but the conversion was too powerful, HIro was overtaken by sadness, not wanting to leave his room for weeks. He got over it because of Baymax and discovering that his micro bots weren't gone after all, though they were now, of course. Not that he couldn't make more, as he certainly could.

But right now Joy needed to keep the other emotions from feeling down in the dumps. Sadness often seemed to be an infectious disease inside headquarters, seeping into places he shouldn't. "Anna's fine back in Arendelle. And we love Honey Lemon. So let's focus on her."

"NO can ever stop loving Anna," said Anger. "Why did she tell us not to come back? It makes me want to break something." He snapped a dart in half.

"You know why she told us that," Disgust said. "We live 200 years after Anna's time. Well, more like 220. And remember when we brought her here? The technology was too much for her."

"Anna loved the technology, she loved everything here. It was Elsa that didn't find this place fitting for her temperament, and Anna couldn't stay here without Elsa," Joy said.

"Yeah, well, if Tadashi were alive, he and Elsa would've made a fine couple," Anger said.

"Just like Hiro and Honey?" asked Sadness.

"Of course like HIro and Hon-" Joy started to say, then stopped herself. "No. Tadashi and Elsa would've been hot over each other. But Honey and Hiro need time apart. Which is why when we get to Scandinavia, we're going to find Hiro a girlfriend."

"You're still overly optimistic," Fear said. "But what Scandinavian girl would want to go out with Hiro?"

"There could be other girls here," Joy said. "It's vacation time. Summer. There might be a girl visiting Finland from her family, who is from Nagomaha, Nebraska or someplace."

"What about someone from Texas?" Anger asked. "A lovely redneck girl is just what I'm in the mood for."

"Hey, I bet Texan chicks are a lot nicer than you're giving them credit for," Joy said. "Er, not overly nice, well, maybe some of them, but it's not like we don't get our own share of kooks in San Fransokyo."

"Finland approaching," said Baymax. "Prepare for landing."

"We're actually stopping in Finland?" Joy said. "But that means we've passed Norway! We can't skip Norway!"

She tapped the button to remind HIro of all the joyous times he had with Anna.

"Joy," Sadness said, in his deep, masculine voice. "Those memeories are imbued with misery! If Hiro goes there, he'll freeze up at the thought of the sad things that happened in that country."

"I have a good feeling about it, though," Joy said. "Like the sort of feeling Hiro gets when he's around Honey Lemon. "

"Honey isn't in Norway," Fear said. "She's in Australia, with her family."

"Don't you find it just a bit odd that Honey's family chose to go to Australia of all places?" Anger said. "I mean, they're Hispanic, for crying out loud! She should be vacationing in Mexico or El Salvador. Someplace nearby."

"And that is why Honey broke up with us!" Sadness said. "Because Hiro keeps making comments like that. So if we do find a new girl, we need to shush it with being rude to Hispanics. Got it?'

Everyone nodded their assent except Anger. "She ought to have invited us," he said.

"Her parents would be shocked to find out that the guy Honey is dating is a few years younger than her," Disgust said, firing a dart at the board. "I know it's not fair for people to judge others based on their age, but when it comes to their daughter's boyfriend, they'd likely overreact."

"We don't know for sure if that's the case," said Joy. "We don't even know if that's what is eating Honey."

"It is," said Anger. "She told Hiro when she was fighting with us. Her parents won't take him being her boyfriend too kindly."

"We're flying to Norway," Baymax said.

"But we just passed it up and were heading for Finland," said Hiro.

"I think for your health to improve, following the feeling of heartbreak, the best place for you to go right now is Norway."

"But Anna..."

"Is not in this time period, and you should just let what occurred in the past, stay in the past. For your own good."

Baymax sailed over a very blue sea. Then he swooped toward the ground, coming to his landing without perfect grace. Hiro slid off, which was odd because it never happened before.

"Hey, what gives?"

"Not trying to upset you, buddy, Baymax said. "I am here to assist any and all health care needs, and a girl in that direction just scraped her knee. I need to go heal her."

HIro agreed to come, though he felt that this was mainly so he wouldn't lose track of Baymax, though his brother Tadashi would have encouraged him to help the girl, whomever she was.

Baymax rose in the air again, Hiro once more on his back, for this way they could reach the girl in a few minutes rather than the several-hours jounrey it would have taken on foot.

They finally found her in a clearing, sitting on her knees and looking very unhappy. Her garments were like those worn by peple fifty years ago. Maybe she was sort of retro. IN love with old fashions from her grandmother's teenage days, or her great-grandmother's if it came to that.

Her hair was short but cute. She wasn't a Honey Lemon. And she certainly wasn't a Gogo...the thoughts of Gogo sitting on her knees from some slight physical pain was ludicrouso.

But HIro felt a powerful bond with her. Did that make any sense? He wasn't sure it did, but gosh she was cute. And he remembered seeing a picture from a SAn Francisco girl (the old name for the town Hiro lived in) who looked a lot like this one. The date for the photograph had been back in 2015.

Of course, Baymax being a robot couldn't know what was going on inside Hiro's head...

"She sure is hot!" Disgust remarked. "Like much hotter than any girl we should hope to be with could be."

"I don't know if calling her 'hot' is appropriate," Fear said. "She could be Hiro's age but she might be younger. I'm going to guess the latter."

"So?" Anger asked.

"So she might resent us thinking of her as 'hot.'"

"She is cute though," Disgust sadi. "Can we call her that?"

"We should not be thinking of another Norwegian girl!" Anger said. "Remember what Anna said to us! If this girl could even remotely like us, we'll just be going through another culmination in heartbreak."

"She's not a Norwegian girl," Sadness said. "She's wearing an American flag on her shirt."

Baymax landed behind the girl and Hiro slid down the robot's back. Then Baymax sprayed the girl's knee and put a bandage over it.

"I think this is a time for screaming," Fear said, about to punch the button that was meant only for dire circumstances.

"Relax," said Riley's Joy. "The robot just doctored us."

"Yeah, but the fact that there is a robot standing before us is alarming in of itself."

"Hey, who's that boy?" Disgust said. "The one with the purple armor, near the robot?"

"Well, duh, there's no one else out here," Anger said. "And of course we don't know who he is, this is the future from our time."

"Let's just talk to him," Joy said, reaching for a lever.

"No," Disgust said. "Not until he speaks first. That is the way to avoid any embarrassing scenarios."

"We could at least say 'thanks,'" Joy said. "We don't have to wait for a cue to do that."

And she hit the button before Disgust could stop her.

"Thank you," the girl said. Hiro thought she was even prettier up close than he had thought her before. Now he could see that "hot" was a little bit strong of a term for how she looked, but still, she could be enough of a distraction if she had a good personality. And in the few seconds he had spoken to her, she already seemed rather kind, though why was sheleft here alone? Had she wandered away from her family while they were on tour, and gotten lost?

"We can't ask her that," Disgust said, when Sadness brought it up. "That's too personal. And if it's glaringly wrong, she'll get mad at us. And even if it's right, she'll still be angry. The best thing to do is avoid that question altogether."

"But we need to talk to her," Joy said. "She's not going to wait forever for us to speak."

This was true, for the girl was standing up and looked read to shove off.

"Uh, wait," Hiro said, causing her to turn. "I'm Hiro, and this is Baymax."

"Well, uh, thank you, Hiro. And Baymax. But I really need to go."

"Couldn't I have your name at least?" Hiro asked.

"It's Riley," she said. "And your robot is pretty impressive."

"Well, my brother built it," Hiro said.

"He must be fascinating at robotics," said Riley.

"He was."

"What do you mean, 'was'?" Riley asked, Sadness at the controls.

"He's not in robotics anymore," Hiro said.

"And he never will be again," his own Sadness said, snapping a dart on his knee.

"Stop being so mopey," Joy said.

"Well, we can't just tell her that Tadashi died," Disgust told them. "She'll back away from us."

"We need to say something to prevent her from never wanting to talk to us again," Anger said.

"How about we tell her that Hiro's a superhero?" Joy offered. "That will work."

"She'll think we're nuts," Disgust said.

"Yeah, well, nuts is better than not wanting to talk to us at all," Joy said, and before anyone could stop her, she punched a yellow button and pulled a corresponding lever.

"What would you think if I told you I was part ofo a superhero team?" Hiro asked Riley.

"I'd think you were trying to impress me," Riley said.

"Maybe I am trying to impress you," Hiro said, attempting to lean against Baymax to perform a "cool guy" pose. He toppled over instead and saw the ground rising up to his face, when a hand grasped his own and he hung an inch from the ground. It took him a few seconds to realize that the hand which rescued him was not a synthetic one. It was human. And then he looked up to see Riley's cute, grinning face.

"You caught me," Hiro said.

"I, er, am often in situations where I need to be agile, and being agile means I can save people from tripping over their own feet."

"Oh, I wasn't tripping. I was just, erm, balancing myself."

"It didn't work very well, did it?" Riley said, laughing.

Anger nearly took the controls in Hiro's mind but Joy shoved him aside. "He's laughing with us, not at us. So calm down."

"I suppose I shouldn't enter any graceful contests," Hiro said.

"You'd still have a good time, even if you only got a participation award," Riley said. "Though if I ran things everyone would be a winner."

"Sounds like living in your world would be sweet," Hiro said.

"You uh, can let go of my hand now," said Riley. Disgust had been clamoring to get the controls, urged by Joy to hold off till it was absolutely necessary. "Enough is enough," Disgust had finally put in, and so she encouraged Riley to say that.

"Uh, sorry," Hiro said, removing his hand and pressing his fingers to the right side of his head, which he did when he was nervous. "I just got so involved with talking to you, I lost track of everything else."

The truth was that Hiro had felt an electric shock of wonder shoot up his arm once he realized it was she who caught him. She felt it too, but she didn't want to acknowledge it. Joy was glowing brighter than usual, which was saying something, since she always glowed.

"I like talking to you, too," Riley said.

"Where are you from, anyway?"

"San Fran," Riley said.

"Oh?" said Hiro. "I'm from there too! But I haven't met you before."

"How odd," she said, though her face was white. "We meet here in this strange country, even though we both live in the same city."

"Except that the San Francisco of Hiro's time is fifty years in the future from our time," Anger said.

"We can't let him know that," Disgust said. "He'll think we're weird."

"We've got to say something," Joy exclaimed, and she punched the yellow button without waiting for anyone else to come up with suggestions.

"What would you think if I told you I play on a hockey team?" Riley asked.

"That I've never seen a cuter hockey player in my life, and that's a fact."

Riley was blushing so furiously at Disgust's prompting that Hiro felt he might've gone too far in saying that.

"Who encouraged him to say that?" his own Disgust asked, tapping his foot. "Was it you Joy?"

"Yeah, it was me. Cause why not?"

"If there's one thing you could've done to ensure Riley would charge away from us, it's that!" Disgust said, waving his arms in Joy's face, indicating the sight of Riley attempt to regain the natural color of her face. Then Disgust tossed three darts at the dartboard.

"I, uh, gotta go," Riley said, and she turned on her heels.

"I'm sorry!" Hiro called after her, but she gave no indication that she had heard. He wanted to chase her, but fear pulled the lever as far as it would go,binding him to the spot.

"She's perfectly healthy," Baymax said. "I just scanned her, and your comment did not really upset her all that much. There was a bit of emotional upheaval, but it's nothing to worry about."

"Baymax, it's just something that can't be fixed," Hiro said, sitting down, for he needed to reboot his energy. "I keep wrecking things with girls."

In an apartment several floors below the headquarters of Riley's mind, a silver emotion was laughing maniacally. Whoever this Hiro boy was, he had just upset the flow. Now Riley liked Gill and Hiro, even though she barely knew either, when it came down to it. And maybe by the end of it, her heart would be flooded by so many boys that she would fall apart.

Because Love could only be mastered b finding the one you'd cut your own heart out for. Not literally, of course. But some electrical surge had just happened between Hiro and Riley. Love feared this a bit, because if it were allowed to grow, she could find Riley mastering her before she could wreck her emotionally, which was not something Love could allow, being defeated so early in this game.

And what she would not tell the other emotions was that if Riley turned around, spent a day or so in Hiro's company while Gill searched for her, she could very well fall in love. At least as deep a love as a twelve-year-old girl and a fourteen-year-old guy could feel. But the spark was already there. That was the trouble Love had difficult dealing with, how close she had come to losing this game when the pieces had barely been on the board.

All she could do was send her influence to invade Riley's dreams by faxing notes to the Dream Production directors that would encourage Riley's thoughts toward Gill and away from Hiro.


	7. Riley Becomes an Absorber

**Left Shoe on the Wrong Foot**

 **Chapter Seven**

Yama was in Norway, and he wasn't happy.

His plans kept getting forestalled. Ever since that Hiro Hamada had wrecked him at the botfight all those months ago, he had felt fits of rage course through him. He wanted to make Hiro pay...

Now he was in a secret lab of his uncle's located in Norway, and he had just finished constructing the Golpizer 3000, a ray gun that would turn anyone into an Absorber. Except for one problem. It could only work on one person depending on the distance Yama was from them, and he figured he shouldn't get too close in case something went wrong and he was blamed for harming a fellow human being.

Not that that really mattered to Yama. Making money was what mattered. Oodles of money, which he used to have when he won botfights. But Hiro had broken his spirit with his little overpowered dwarfbot.

Now he applied the finishing touches. One issue, though, which entered his mind as he affixed the reverberating device. It was a sort of funnel tube which allowed you to pinpoint coordinates to target someone. The idea, if this worked properly, was that the ray would hit your target even if a reflective surface, such as a mirror, caused it to pivot in a different direction. The ray would hone in on the target.

At last it was applied. So all Yama had to do was await an opportunity to fire it off...

He hurried out of his apartment, eager to find their target.

"HIro seems like a lot of fun," Riley's Joy said. Sadness was driving-Riley's head was down. Any observer could've taken one look at her and known she was down in the dumps.

"We'll never see him again, though," Sadness said. "And it's probably for the best. We get to avoid any arguments that would've happened. And once he finds out we're from fifty years before his time, he won't want to talk to us anymore."

progress. And something sticky was clinging to Riley's hair.

"Ew, what is that?" Disgust asked.

"I don't know, but I think I'd better drive," said Anger, who looked to be on the verge of having an outburst of flames erupt from his head.

A loud cackle rang out. Riley turned to the source and saw a girl standing there. She had on a green-and-yellow striped parka, and while her hair was mostly midnight blue, her bangs were orange. And she had pink, silver, and jungle green polka dots on her face, placed in such a way as to resemble the symbol for the Olympics.

"How do people of the future walk around with such blatant disregard for fashion?" Disgust wondered. She wished she could turn Riley away from the disturbing sight.

"Spider-girl?" Hiro asked, in a surprised tone. "I thought you were in prison."

"That's funny," said the oddly dressed girl. Her voice was rather bubbly. "My friend here thought _you'd_ be the one in prison."

"What friend?" Hiro asked.

"Remember me?" said a booming voice. A man with more pounds on him than any one human being should have stepped out from behind some bundles of hay. "Yama, the guy you humiliated? Well, today, little boy, I get my revenge."

"Hiro, tell Baymax to fly us away!" Riley exclaimed, for the glint in Yama's eyes filled her with fear. (Incidentally Fear had just taken the wheel within the headquarters of her mind.)

"We can't do that just yet," Baymax said.

"Why not?" Riley asked.

"Well, for one thing, we're in a spider web," Hiro said. "And I'm afraid that Ellie's power keeps Baymax from flying in one of her webs. Or breaking out."

"So what do we do?"'

"We find out what they want, then leave," Hiro said, mysteriously.

Riley didn't know what he meant by that. Did he have a plan that would get them out of there?"

"What we want, is to shoot you," Yama said, holding up a metal contraption. It looked nothing like a gun. More like what would happen if a toaster mated with a stapler, sprinklers, windshield wipers, and a model of Big Ben.

"Did you know, " Yama sneered, "that if people fear you, they won't think so highly of you anymore? And your friends will flee from you. The scary beast."

"I know that you're speaking rubbish, Yama," Hiro said coolly. "Now tell your girlfriend to let me and Riley out of here so we can be on our way."

"Nice try, zero," Yama said. He punched Hiro in the ribs and aimed the contraption in his face.

Love, the silver emotion, emerged from the elevator. "What's all the commotion?" she asked.

"Yama's about to hurt Hiro!" Fear wailed from a corner.

"No, he isn't," Love said, and she pulled some levers.

The contraption shot out a green ray. It was aimed at Hiro's mouth, but Riley shoved him aside, and it hit her forehead instead.

"Dang it, girlie. You're going to be in a world of hurt," Yama said. His face was livid. All his emotions had spouted fire out of the top of their heads. Of course, no one present could witness this, least of all Yama himself.

"What's the big deal?" Spider-Girl said. "Just shoot him again."

"Mary, you don't understand. The gun only works once. I meant to turn Hiro into the one everyone feared. And now it's this girl who no one will love. This is why I wanted to bring the mirror. But you said we wouldn't need it with your webbing to ensnare him."

"You know," said Spider-Girl. "She could be the pink costumed girl from his team. So if people fear her, they might fear him too."

"You're right," Yama said, high-fiving her. "We got Hiro cornered after all."

Inside the spider web, Riley had a massive headache.

"Oh great, what's going on?" Joy wondered.

"Pandemonium!" said one of the workers, who had just arrived via a tube that was installed after the control panel had to be fitted in after the crisis which resulted in Riley nearly running away from home.

"What do you mean Pandemonium?" Joy asked the worker.

"Well, you see," he said. "Riley's imagination is going haywire. I mean the new arrival machine is creating Joy said.

instigated it isn't something we'd welcome."

"Okay, so Riley has a headache and her imagination is going haywire. Nothing bad has happened yet," Joy said.

Just then Riley opened her eyes. Baymax was leaning over her. Then a yellow beam shot out of her eyes, and the robot vanished.

"Baymax!" Hiro exclaimed.

"Oh wow, it works on robots too," said Yama. "I hadn't expected it to be that powerful"

"What happened to Baymax?" Hiro exclaimed, reaching through the spider web to grip Yama's collar.

"Easy now, little boy. Don't go picking fights with someone you can't handle."Yama taunted.

"I want to know where Baymax is."

"I'd tell you, but that'd make your job too simple, and little boys have it simple enough already."

Just then a red beam shot out of Riley's eyes and Yama disappeared.

"Riley?" Hiro asked tentatively.

She looked at him. And a green light emerged it and encircled him, drawing him nearer and nearer to her forehead. Then he was gone.

"What a dangerous little girl you are," taunted the maiden who styled herself "Spider-Girl."

A purple beam shot out of Riley's eyes and swallowed up Spider-Girl. Then Riley blacked out.


	8. Displaccement

**Left Shoe on the Wrong Foot**

 **Chapter Eight**

"What happened?" Joy asked the other emotions. "Where did Hiro and Baymax and the other two go?"

"Not sure," Disgust said, puzzled.

"And why is Riley unconscious? Someone needs to get her up."

"I think it was the shock," said the mind worker. "She might not want to remember this. She'll try to convince herself it was all a dream. That Hiro and the robot were part of her subconscious. Might be easy to convince herself of that. Spider-Girl seemed very odd to me, something the kooks in Dream Production would think up."

"Ugh! Is nothing going to go right?" Joy asked. Which was ironic because she was the one who usually brought cheer to the team when everyone else was feeling jittery.

"She's coming to," Anger said. The dark headquarters got light again. And Riley opened her eyes. Gill was standing there, looking concerned.

"Is everything okay?" Gill asked.

"I...I think so," Riley said, shaking her head. "I had this really strange dream."

"Well, it's over now. And I've got the implant mechanism."

He put something in her ear.

"I've getting a weird buzz feeling from that," Disgust said. "Gosh that's disturbing."

"It'll help us communicate with anyone who speaks any Indo-European language," Gill was saying. "That's not every language on Earth, of course. The manual which came with it said that science was far from inventing a one-Earth language translator. But wearing these we can communicate with the people of 1840's Arendelle. And as soon as we return to the time machine, we'll head back there."

"Couldn't you have brought the time machine here?' Riley asked. She was feeling irritated for some reason.

"Anger, are you driving?" Joy asked inside Riley's head.

"I'm not anywhere near the controls," Anger said from his armchair. He was reading a newspaper with the headline, RILEY'S IMAGINATION SWARMED BY NEW OCCUPANTS.

Joy tore it from his hands. "Um, guys? You might want to see this."

She spread it out on the floor. Disgust, Sadness, and Fear hurried over, as did the mind worker.

Hiro and Baymax were in the picture walking on the edge of a mountain. The mountain was fluffy and white, like clouds.

"Hiro and Baymax in her imagination? This can't be," said the mind worker.

"Doesn't the imagination sometimes play with real life people?" Joy asked.

"Yes, in a manner of speaking. That is, the imagination can reproduce real life people for purposes of fantasies, etc. But Riley isn't supposed to remember Hiro or Baymax at all. So they have no business being in her imagination."

"Nevertheless, they're there," Joy said. "So obviously she remembers them."

"I'm not sure it necessarily means that. I mean, Bing Bong was living there for years and she didn't think of him that often at all. However, she just met Baymax and Hiro so if facsimiles of them are wandering around in her imagination, then she must remember them."

"Okay, but shouldn't her thoughts be back on Arendelle, and the snow queen Elsa?"

"She hasn't met Elsa yet. She only knows her through Gill's stories. But I'll go sort the stuff out in Imagination Land. Toodles."

The mind worker left the way he came, though the tube.

That was when Joy noticed Love was at the control panel. "Hey, get away from there!"

"And spoil the fun?" Love said. "No thanks."

"So uh, Gill, when we get back to Arendelle, you'll alert the authorities to Elsa having collapsed by slamming into the time machine?' Riley said, leaping over a rock that was in her path.

"Unless you want to," Gill said.

"We can both do it together! It'll be our first adventure as hus-"

Riley stopped short. Inside her mind, Joy had shoved Love away from the controls. "Get back in your apartment, you!"

"Knock it off, Joy. Riley was close to haviing her first boyfriend."

"She's twelve years old. Too young for a boyfriend."

"Not on my watch," Love said. "And she already had an imaginary one, as you very well know."

"Yes, but an imaginary boyfriend never hurt anymore. But a real boyfriend..."

"Maybe Gill is a vampire," Sadness said hopefully. "Then it'd be like we're living our own tragic vampire love story."

"Don't be silly, Sadness," Joy said. "A real vampire wouldn't show us a time machine and take us all the way to Arendelle and then to the future and still pretend to be our friend."

"I happen to think that's exactly what a real vampire would do," Love snapped. "Though it doesn't matter whether Gill is a vampire or not. Riley has feelings for him, otherwise I wouldn't be here. Though she likes Hiro even more, if only she remembered he existed."

Then Love saw the newspaper spread out near Anger's now vacant armchair. She clutched her hear and reached for a support.

"What's with you?" Disgust said.

"Hiro's in Cloud Mountain! But Riley doesn't remember him. How can this be?"

"We've already gone over that," Joy said. "While you were messing with the controls. And Riley's not talking to Gill right now. Seems you created something awkward before I interrupted you."

Joy was glaring at Love with such an intensity that none of the emotions had ever seen her give off before. It was like she had been taken over by rage. Disgust almost expected flames to shoot out of Joy's head. Though what was going on in Disgust's head other than that were things she'd be better off not saying aloud...

"Here we are at the time machine again," Gill said. "May I help you up?"

"No, I've got it, thanks," Riley said. She climbed up herself and took her seat.

"Did you meat any robots while you were here?"

"I think I saw one picking up trash," Riley said. "But that was it."

"Too bad. There are some mighty cool robots in 2065."

Gill pulled on the past lever. "Make sure your implant is in your ear securely. Just to avoid confusion when we get there."

"Right," Riley said. She did as instructed. Then she grew excited. She was going to meet Queen Elsa! After they revived her of course.

In her head, Love backed away to return to her apartment. Anger was reading a fresh newspaper, the front page of which began with an article bearing the headline LEAVING HAPPY MEMORIES BEHIND IN THE FUTURE.

"'Leaving' is right," Anger muttered, continuing to read the paper.

Fear was pacing back and forth. "What happens if we're flung out of the time machine while it's moving? Will Gill be able to find us again? Or will we be lost in time forever?"

"Probably the latter," Sadness said. "And we'll never get our sweet vampire kiss."

"Gill is not a vampire," Joy said. "No way."

"Elsa might be," Love said, having returned from her apartment.

"Hey, go back to your hovel and leave us alone," Joy said, her arms folded.

"I was just proposing that Elsa might be a vampire, that's all. Since we have a Gill-is-a-vampire theory going along."

"No one thinks Gill is a vampire," Joy said assuredly. "You're just here to stir up trouble."

"But didn't you hear what Gill was telling Riley just now?'

"Er, no," Joy seethed. "We were having a pest problem in the form of a silver-colored emotion."

"Ha-ha, very funny," Love said. "If I can figure out how to go to Imagination Land, I'll have Riley thinking about Hiro so much it'll bug you till you're blue in the face."

"I'm blue in the face," Sadness said.

"There's actually an easy way to get to Imagination Land," Anger said, sidling up to Love. He had tossed the newspaper aside, sheets of it lay strewn across the floor of headquarters.

"Is there?" Love asked coquettishly. She batted her eyelashes.

"Yeah, right over there," Anger said, pointing to the tube the mind worker had used. "Of course, you could use that tube as well," he added, waving his hand upward. "But I don't recommend going through there. You might never come back."

"Oh but if I take the other tube, I'll get back? How does that make sense?"

"Well, when you slide down it you get a key to get back in and reverse the flow," Anger explained. "Fear's been down there, he'll tell you."

"Yeah, I went," Fear said. "But it's really scary. You end up in a dark cave. I think Joy's glow could keep you from bumping into things, but Joy wasn't with me then."

"Why'd you go down there?" Love asked.

"Well, Riley needed to not have any fear for awhile, so I slipped aside for a bit by going down the tube."

"And so you got a key while standing in the dark?"

"Well, I had to find the light switch first before I could locate the key. Then I slid right on back once I inserted it in the slot meant for that."

"Interesting," Love said. "Very illuminating, I should say. I think I might just take a trip down there."

"You can't," Joy said, blocking Love's path by stretching her arms. "It's too dangerous."

"Out of my way, yellow," Love said.

"Don't call me 'yellow,'" Joy said, her teeth clenched.

"You really are getting on my last nerve. Goodbye."

And with that Love bent low and slid past Joy, aiming for the tube.

Joy leapt on her and held her neck just as she was about to disappear. Joy gave Love a punch to the jaw. And then the tube sucked both of them in.

"Okay, I'm about to say that curse word," Anger said. "Lose Joy once, sure. But lose her twice? Now we're in trouble."

"Plus she won't be happy trapped down there with Love," Sadness said.

"Great going, Anger," Disgust said, giving a toss of her head. "What'd you go and say that to Love for? You know that her being in Imagination Land is bad news."

"I thought that if we got rid of her, things could go more smoothly around here," Anger said defensively.

"Let's just hope they get the key and come right back," said Disgust.

"I volunteer to go after them if they don't," Sadness said. "Since it was I and Joy who were sent out of headquarters the first time."

"No way. Riley almost ran away and you were the only one who could stop her. If anyone should go, it's Fear."

"Why me?" Fear asked.

"Because you're the only one who has been down there before. That way, I mean. And Sadness isn't going."

"Let's...not worry about this right now," Anger said. "Let's just keep up the hope that they'll return."

" _You're_ the one who loses faith that anyone could come back from there first," Disgust said. But their attention was drawn to what Riley was seeing, for she and Gill had arrived back in Arendelle.

Gill helped Riley down. She didn't really care for his gallantry, but she thought that Elsa needed help as quickly as she could get it, as Elsa was still out cold.

"Wouldn't our presence here create a rift in the space-time continuum?" Fear asked with shaking hands.

"Don't worry about it," Disgust said. "If the point ever comes were we would need to worry about it, it'll already be too late."

Gill turned to Riley. "Guard her while I go find help, all right?"

"Why should I stand guard?" Riley asked. Anger had gripped the controls, and hence Riley wasn't looking too happily at Gill. "Is it because I'm a girl?"

"Yes," Gill said, causing her to glare at him. "You are a girl. And so you probably better understand what it means to protect Elsa than a boy would. And listen, don't bite my head off for thinking of you first. I like you, Riley, and...well, I'd better go get help now," he said, scampering off.

Riley was thinking about what he said, and how he liked her. Only when she heard the words in her memory, they were spoken by a different boy, with a much different voice...

She gazed at the unconscious body of the platinum blond young woman in her icy blue dress. And then beams of four different colors shot out at Elsa...purple, green, red, and blue. They came from Riley's eyes, but she could not see them emerge. And then when Riley could look around, she saw that Elsa was nowhere to be found. She had just vanished.

Gill came running up with someone who introduced himself as Kai. "Where is Queen Elsa?" he asked, after shaking Riley's hand.

"I don't know," Riley said, not looking at either of them. "She just vanished."

"But this boy tells me she was unconscious. She couldn't have left on her own."

"I mean that she was here one minute and gone the next," Riley said, knowing they wouldn't believe her.

"How can this happen?" Gill asked. "Did we activate something that harmed her? Or did we mess up the space-time continuum?"

"See, I knew this would happen," Fear said, cowering behind a couch.

"Queen Elsa is missing," Kai said, speaking to a woman who had just come up. "Please alert her sister immediately."

"I shall," said the woman, before hurrying off.

Gill gave Riley a worried look.

"What?" she whispered.

"Anna was kidnapped, remember? Or adultnaped. Teenagenapped? Either way, she's not here to tell anything to."

"This is really worrying," Kai said, rubbing his hands together. "A missing queen...nothing could be worse. Kristoff will have to be informed. He can help find her, yeah I'll go seek him out."

He hurried off.

"This is terrible," Riley said. "No Elsa, no Anna. What did we come here for?" she asked, her hands on her face.

"To fix things," Gill said. Even to him it sounded ridiculous, because they had just made a mess of everything.

"Well, we certainly didn't manage that," Riley said, peeking out through her fingers.

"Nope, guess not," Gill said. He leaned against the time machine. And then a silver light shot out, engulfing him and the machine. Both vanished, and Riley collapsed, everything in headquarters going dark.


	9. Hiro in Riley's Mind

**Left Shoe on the Wrong Foot**

 **Chapter Nine**

"Where are we?" Hiro asked. He and Baymax were standing near some fluffy clouds that stretched high into the sky.

"I don't know," his robot said. "One minute I was there, then I came here. And you followed suit."

"Hey down there," called a voice. A purple round creature with limbs rolled down the mountainside toward them. "Were you fabricated by the imagination generator? You two just appeared here. I'm guessing you have instant-transport powers? That's really cool."

Hiro gazed at the creature. He had to shield his eyes, the sun was rather blinding. "We don't know how we got here," he said. "Could this be a dream?"

"Nah, it's not a dream. Being imaginary though, it might feel like one. "

"What was the last thing you remember doing before you got here, Hiro?" Baymax inquired.

"I was standing with Riley in the spider web that Mary unleashed on us. And then you disappeared. Then I came here after you."

"You two are more high definition than most of Riley's other imaginative creations," said the round being. "Well, I suppose that Riley's imagination is getting deeper now, after the recent crisis. No worries."

"You know Riley?" Hiro asked the creature.

"Of course I know Riley! Don't we all live inside her head?"

"We're in Riley's head?" Hiro asked, looking from the creature to Baymax.

"That's what he said," the robot put in.

"How did we get here?"

"It's simple," the rotund creature said, waving a baton it held. "Riley thought you up, and then you were here. But she never came up with someone who could transport themselves instantly. I mean Bing Bong had a flying rocket but even he couldn't make it from the imagination generator all the way to this spot in a few seconds."

At that moment a young woman with platinum blond hair which fell past her butt and which was in a plait, fell next to them. She wore an icy-blue dress, and appeared to be knocked out.

"Elsa!" Hiro said, clutching his heart. "How did she get here?"

"An imaginary being that is unconscious upon its arrival and teleports itself while knocked out?" the rotund creature with the baton said. "How odd."

"Elsa can't teleport herself," Hiro said. "She has a lot of cool powers, but that's not one of them. Though if she were conscious she could probably still get here super fast by laying ice on the ground."

"HOw can you be so cognizant of someone just born from the imagination machine? Unless you're the Prognosticator who knows all which will come in the imagination from the here on out?"

"I don't know what you're talking aobut," Hiro said. "And right now Elsa needs help."

"I'll say," said another voice. Hiro turned and saw a boy with brown hair and wearing a bright yellow T-shirt leaning against what looked a lot like Santa's sleigh. "I must've gotten zapped to wherever Riley sent Elsa."

"The thing that is the most magnificent about you," said the rotund creature, quite mesmerized, "is that you all seem convinced that you've met Riley."

"I certainly have," the brown-haired boy said. "Don't know about this fellow. Or the robot."

"We've met Riley," Hiro said. "She told me she's from San Fransokyo as well. Funny how we met in Nroway."

"San Fransokyo? No way. Riley's from SAn Francisco."

"Uh, San Francisco is now San Fransokyo, and has been so for nearly thirty years," Hiro said,, gazing at the brown-haired boy as if he had never heard of people saying such crazy things as he was.

"Wow, Riley's even imagined a future where San Francisco has a more exotic sounding name and includes robots," the rotund creature said. "This is fascinating! Such an imaginative girl we've got."

"Who is this fellow, and where the heck are we?" the brown-haired boy asked.

"In all likelihood we are in Riley's head," said Baymax, who lifted his head from where he was observing Elsa so he could answer.

"This is unreal," sad the boy. "Riley's head? I was supposed to introduce Riley to Elsa. And we were going to save her sister from the men who kidnapped her."

"Anna was kidnapped?" Hiro asked, cooncern in his voice.

"Yep," the brown-haired boy said. "That's what we came back in time for."

"Back in time? Wait, you and Riley are time-travelers?"

"Well, this was her first trip through time. But essentially, yes."

"Wait, she's not Riley Anderson, is she?" Hiro asked, brows furrowed.

"That's right. She's Riley Anderson."

"No way. You're bluffing."

"He's not bluffing," said the rotund creature, now rubbing its hands together. "You were brought to life by the imagination of Riley Anderson. Her world is your world."

"This can't be..." Hiro said. "Me and Elsa in the head of Riley Anderson..."

"Do you know Riley Anderson from somewhere?" Bayxam asked. He had just finished listening to Elsa's pulse.

"I know that she helped make San Francisco become San Fransokyo. She's an architect who designed many of the skyscrapers that line the city now but which weren't there fifty years ago. I never thought I'd meet her as a teenager."

"She's twelve," the brown-haired boy said.

"Close enough," said Hiro. What he didn't say was that he didn't want to have a crush on someone who was nearly fifty years older than him. Sure she was techincally two years younger, but in simple terms she was born forty-eight years before he was. And now he was in her head. This was too confusing.

"I could really use a soda about now," Hiro said.

"Will a butterbeer do?" asked the rotund creature. He handed Hiro a bottle.

"That looks strange," Hiro said. He tasted it. "Tangy though."

"One of the finest products of Riley's imagination. Fueled by the words of J.K. Rowling."

"Wait, this drink is from Harry Potter?"

"Why the surprise?" asked the brown-haired boy. "Apparently a lot of stuff here is fueled by Riley's imagination."

Suddenly the lights dimmed.

"Uh, what's going on?" Hiro asked.

"Riley must be asleep," said the rotund creature. "The lights go out around that time. And she'll be slipping into REM soon enough."

"Experiencing the subsconscious of the human mind," said the brown-haired boy. "World of wonders."

"Oh, but the subconscious isn't anywhere near here," said the rotund creature. "You've got a ways to go to find it. Near dream production, it is."

"Well, that sounds like an adventure I'm willing to undertake," said the brown-haired boy.

"This is Riley's mind we're talking about," Hiro said. "Let's not go exploring just yet."

"You'll get lost real quick anyway, with no lights," said the rotund creature.

"Excuse me," Baymax said. He was suddenly glowing a brilliant red.

"Wow, that robot Riley thought up is really spectacular," said the mind worker, its face lit up with glee.

"So shall we be going then?" the brown-haired boy asked Hiro.

"I think I should remain here with Elsa," Hiro said. "Since she's unconscious, she needs someone to make sure she's safe."

"It was the machine that knocked her out. Bit unfortunate, really."

"That machine?" Baymax asked, pointing to the sleigh.

"Yeah," said the brown-haired boy. "It slammed into her and then she was out cold. That's why we went to your time. To get a ranslator to talk with the people of Arendelle."

"All of us in the 2060's have those," Hiro said, nodding. "I know back in the past ya'll didn't, but that seems quite strange. Like you couldn't communicate except minimally if both people attempting to communicate didn't speak the same language."

That's true," said the brown-haired boy. "Pretty much how it is. Outside of translators who do know both languages."

"But how do you know that what they're telling you is true?" Hiro asked in bewilderment.

"You don't. You have to take it on blind faith."

"Gosh you people in the past had it bad," Hiro said. "Couldn't even be sure of what one another was saying unless you both understood the same language."

"Hey, future boy. No need to get cocky."

"I wasn't being cocky, that was merely an observation."

"Yeah, well, we'd best be moving if we're going to help Elsa."

"Listen, I don't even know your name, nor what you have to do with Elsa. There's no way I'm trusting her to your care."

"Everybody calls me Gill," the brown-haired boy said. "And I know Elsa through history, though she doesn't know me as of yet."

"I didn't know that Norwegian queens were of interest to people in 2015," Hiro said. "So how do you know her history?"

"I'm a descendant of the Summer Queen," Gill said, which was the last thing Hiro expected to hear.

"No, you're not," he said, unable to stop himself.

"Why not? I know the history."

"Yes but there's only one living descendant of the Summer Queen, in the 2060's, and we still don't know who it is."

"I'm the one you're referring to," Gill insisted.

"Oh yeah? Show me your fire powers."

"I thought you were a man of science," Gill said. "You're not supposed to inquire about someone's powers."

"Who told you I was a man of science?"

"Isn't everyone in the 2060's a science buff?"

"Er, no?" Hiro said. "It's still a subject mainly nerds are interested in."

"Why do you think I"d have a power?"

"If you are a descendant of the Summer Queen, you must have one. Though I think you're lying."

"You asked how I knew Elsa's history," Gill said, glaring at Hiro. "I gave you an answer."

"You're not taking Elsa anywhere," Hiro said, as the Anger inside his head burst with flames atop his scalp.

"Fine, you can come along."

He headed for the sleigh.

"What are you doing?" Hiro asked.

"Getting in the time machine to get us to where we're going."

"It's a time machine, though," Hiro said. "It can't travel through space."

"This one can. If you're scientific enough to understand how it works."

Hiro sighed, then lifted Elsa in his arms. For a second he got a horrifying image that Honey Lemon was lying unconscious and he was holding onto her, hoping she was still alive. Then that image was replaced with one of Riley, apparently dead. He pressed his head to Elsa's chest to hear a heartbeat, though in his mind it was Riley's he listened for.

"Hiro is experiencing high levels of worry right now," Baymax said. "We'd best get going to someplace where he can stabilize his emotional state."

Sadness reigned in Hiro's mind as he and Elsa were loaded in the time machine by Baymax, who still gave off a reddish glow. Then Gill pressed something on the machine and the surface of Riley's mind turned to ice. Hiro would have remakred on it had he been able to see straight. As it was, he could only picture the loss of Riley, a girl he barely knew, but whom he felt a strong connection with. And he clutched Elsa's limp body tighter, for both Elsa and Hiro loved another girl deeply, Elsa much more so than Hiro, but nevertheless his heart gave a distant and violent pang for Anna, and his mind was a confused mess as images of hearbreak and loss swarmed his imagination and a gold sleigh rolled across the ice toward the imagination of a twelve-year-old girl, cut off from her time and with a strange new ability that would frighten her if she found out about it, and in headquarters Fear gave a shiver for he knew tremulous times were on the horizon. And it didn't help that JOy was gone. Again. And with no Joy to help her through this, Riley would be at the hands of the other emotions, and happiness itself could flee, though in Imagination Land no one knew this was coming, and Hiro did not know, could not know, that his emotions were being swayed by Riley's, and though Sadness could be beneficial in some cases, her being in control at headquarters while Hiro resided in Riley's mind meant bad news for Hiro, as he did not yet know how deeply he and Riley were connected.


End file.
